


Burning

by compos_dementis



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Francis should've known better than to fall in love with a human. Especially when England knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning

The wind dragged through his long hair like fingers as he urged his horse faster and faster and faster down the path.

 

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t call a meeting with his government without Arthur losing his mind behind his back? Non, it wasn’t true, because that would be ridiculous, she didn’t do anything wrong, but still he went faster and faster, panicking, even though he knew that there would be no stopping it.

 

He dismounted when he came to the location, practically leaping off his horse, stumbling a bit as he hit the ground and running forward. He saw the figures in the distance, saw Arthur’s silhouette against the backdrop of sunset, dragging a smaller figure behind him, though the smaller didn’t put up much of a fight.

 

Non. Non, non, non, non, non.

 

_“You keep smiling at me. Do you have a crush on me, Monsieur Bonnefoy?”_

_“Quoi?” Francis laughs, though a little awkwardly, and tries to seem composed. “S’il vous plait, mademoiselle, that would be improper. A young woman such as yourself? You deserve far nicer than me.” He smiles at her once more, and she laughs this time. “Though I must admit, you are one to catch the eye, non?”_

_Her face brightens and she shoves at him, playfully. A child. Just a child. _

_“You are not so homely yourself, monsieur. I am surprised a young woman such as myself has not whisked you away for her own yet.”_

England was tying her down. Francis was sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him. Her head was down and she seemed dazed, not quite herself, dizzy – her small feet were bare as they scraped the wood of the cross.

 

It was a cross. They were tying her to a cross.

 

Francis felt tears start pricking his eyes and his heart hammered and he shouted her name at the top of his lungs, catching England’s attention. England turned to face him fully and squared his narrow shoulders like he was ten feet tall – and held up a torch.

 

The girl at the cross began to wake.

 

Francis can’t help but blush at her remark – he knows he’s good-looking, but he isn’t one to show it off, and her comment has caught him off guard.

_She laughs. “You’re red!” she teases, and reaches over to tug his sleeve. “Look at that, strong Monsieur Bonnefoy, red in the face from a simple compliment!”_

_“You…” He frowns a little and sits straighter. “You were implying something, non, cheri? It sounded almost like you were flirting with me!”_

_The girl is young, but her eyes are older than she is by far, and her smile is ten years younger than herself. “That’s because I was, silly! I thought you were meant to be the nation of love! Why are you so blind when it comes to people expressing an interest in you?”_

_Francis is beet red now, but he feels a bit hopeful, surprisingly. “I am used to being the one ‘expressing an interest,’ mademoiselle, not the other way around.”_

“Fran… Francis…” He couldn’t hear her speak, but her lips moved around his name, and he was growing tired but adrenalin kept him going. Her short hair was framing her face messily, choppily, her eyes wide and pleading. “Francis, _s’il vous plait_…”

 

England urged him onward, taunting in those eyes. “Come and save her,” his eyes told him. “If you love her, come and rescue her.” And he tried, he tried so hard, reaching and screaming her name and half-crying before a group of Englishmen grabbed him around the arms and held him back.

 

He tried fighting them off, and the girl was shouting for her cross, she needed her cross, and was crying out his name and begging for him to be by her side. Her frame was so small against the large structure, thin, and as much as she pulled at the ropes holding her in place, they wouldn’t break. It was over. They all knew it was over.

 

“Angleterre! Angleterre, please, don’t-! Please, don’t, don’t!” His feet dug into the ground as he tried to force himself forward. “Please, Angleterre-!”

 

Sobbing, panicking, hair fraying from his ponytail to come around his face, and England just closed his eyes and turned to her -- and dropped the torch.

 

“Does this mean you have an interest in me, then?” the girl asks him, no more than seventeen, a glint in her eyes unlike any he’s ever seen before. It makes his heart jump up into his throat. “Is that why you keep smiling at me?”

Francis felt his heart about break in two as he saw her head tip back, saw her feet try to come up and away from the flames licking at them, saw her mouth open in a scream of agony.

 

He replies, “Perhaps I do. Pourquoi? Are you planning on acting on it? A young thing like you, with an old man like myself?”

England looked on, and Francis thought he saw madness in those eyes.

 

“Maybe I have a thing for older men.”

Her arms strained and the fire leapt upward and engulfed her entire lower half, and she jerked and sobbed and cried his name again.

 

She reaches and takes his hand in her own, smirking.

Francis freed an arm from their hold and stretched out his hand to her, screaming for her.

 

She leans up and pulls him down simultaneously.

“You brought this upon yourself, France!” England screamed, though it was barely audible over the crackling of flames, and embers fell around them, ashes, black and gold littering the air.

 

“Besides,” she whispers. “You’re not that old, and I’m not as young as you’d like to think I am.”

She burned.

 

_Francis smiles at the same time she does._

He ran forward after they released him, threw himself at the foot of her pyre, and gathered her ashes in his hands. That was all that was left. Ashes.

 

_She grins and pulls him fully downward…_

He dug as if to find something remaining, anything of hers, and he found only ashes.

 

_…and he leans in with the pull, arms going about her waist…_

And he looked back, and England watched him, and he shook and trembled and…

 

_…and she whispers “Je t’aime” against his lips…_

…there, in the ashes of Jeanne d’Arc…

 

_…and she kisses him._

…he broke at the feet of the great British Empire.

 

_“Ma belle mademoiselle Jeanne.”_


End file.
